Thorner: Shocking Far Reaching Tentacles of the Common Core

For most individuals, what is next revealed will be the most shocking aspect of Dr. Duke Peta’s revelations during his presentation titled, “Common Core: Dangers and Threats, as the featured speaker at a Northern Illinois Patriot’s meeting on Tuesday, May 13: “The National Sexuality Education Standards – Core Contents and Skills, K-12″, published January, 2012. These standards were developed to address the inconsistent implementation of sexuality education nationwide and the limited time allocated to teaching the topic. As with the Math and Language Arts, the idea is to create a universal standard.

Does the federal government have any business teaching sex? Five and six year old students must be able to define different kinds of family structure. By seven, students must be able to define how boys and girls are supposed to act. Might this infer that a boy is a boy or a girl a girl simply because culture made them that way? The National Sexuality Education Standards won’t be introduced as a separate curriculum, but will be woven into the teaching of other Common Core subjects.
On page 12 of The National Sexuality Education Standards: By the end of 2nd grade, students should be able to: Use proper names for body parts, including male and female anatomy.

On page 14: By the end of 5th grade, students should be able to: Describe male and female reproductive systems including body parts and their functions. Identify medically-accurate information about female and reproductive anatomy. Define sexual orientation as the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender.

On page 9 under “Guiding Values and Principles”: Students need opportunities to engage in cooperative and active learning strategies, and sufficient time must be allocated for students to practice skills relating to sexuality education.

A father was rightly upset with this sexual education poster hanging in the classroom of his 13-year old middle school student with this title: “How do people express their sexual feelings?”

Then there is the privacy invasion of Data Mining which was created as part of the nationalized Common Core standards scheme, funded with Obama stimulus money, with grants also coming from the liberal Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The feds want to use schools to catalog “attributes, dispositions, social skills, attitudes, and intrapersonal resources, independent of intellectual ability,” all under the guise of education. Per agreement, every state signing on to receive 2009 stimulus funds were mandated to share student information with the federal government. Personally identifiable information will be extracted from each student, including parents’ names, address, Social Security Number, date of birth, place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.

Under “Guidance for Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS),” a detailed plan for “data stewardship” in education, sensitive information will likewise be gathered which delves into the intimate details of students’ lives, such as 1) Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or parent, 2) Mental and psychological problems of the student or the student’s family, 3) Sex behavior or attitudes, and 4) Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or the student’s parent.

It gets creepier yet! There have been reports of the use of student-monitoring techniques such as “functional magnetic resonance imaging” and “using cameras to judge facial expressions, an electronic seat that judges posture, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse, and a biometric wrap on kids’ wrists.” These devices are not yet in use here in Illinois, but they are being employed in states where Common Core standards have been around for several years.

Many states are experiencing sticker shock at the cost of implementing Common Core. It is estimated that states will spend up to an estimated $10 billion up front, then as much as $800 million per year for the first seven years that Common Core is up and running. Much of the additional cost is for Common Core-aligned textbooks and curriculum, as well as teacher training, technology upgrades (computers are needed), testing and assessment. This additional expense comes at a time when many states and school districts are struggling to stay afloat. These massive, unfunded mandates will undoubtedly fall on the backs of taxpayers.

According to child psychologist, Dr. Megan Koschnick, Common Core standards are developmentally and age inappropriate. You can watch the video here of Dr. Koschnick’s full presentation given at a conference held at the University of Notre Dame on September 9 by the American Principles Project (APP), in conjunction with thePioneer Institute and the Heartland Institute.

As related by Dr. Megan Koschnick during her presentation;

Instead of thinking about what’s developmentally appropriate for kindergarteners, they are thinking [college] is where we want this kindergartener to end up, so let’s back track down to kindergarten and have kindergarteners work on these skills from an early age. This can cause major stress for the child because they are not prepared for this level of education.

Heartland Institute’s Joy Pullman had this to say:

Dr. Koschnick’s analysis makes it clear what other early childhood professionals have said: Common Core asks small children to behave like little adults, and they are not little adults. Anyone who cares for a small child could tell you this. This is a further consequence of the Common Core lead writers’ lack of experience and professional reputation, and of its committees excluding experts in early childhood.

Educators are under so much pressure to prepare students for the upcoming Common Core-aligned standardized tests – the PARCC exam to debut in 2015 – they are ramping up math and reading instruction and eliminating a number of other activities from the school day. The result: Students in the early grades are feeling so “bogged down” that “during the last hour of the day, they’re unteachable.”

As to the stress students are experiencing, young elementary students are hiding out in school bathrooms as a way of coping with stress when faced with confusing math problems and other new learning approaches required by Common Core. Chicago-area parents and a veteran educator aren’t surprised by the recent revelation that one of the city’s pre-K-8 schools is cracking down on kids’ bathroom breaks in order to “maximize student learning and reduce the loss of instructional time.” Students are also complaining of having headaches or stomach aches.

There are states who are now rethinking the Common Core State Standards they signed up for back in 2010. But not so fast! It will not be easy to opt out of Common Core. As with Obamacare and the push for manmade Global Warming, the Left, and some on the Right, are not going to allow their long-held dreams to be terminated without fighting tooth and nail to keep the programs in place. Too much time, effort and money has been invested to bring the programs to fruition. The controversial programs also align with U.N. Agenda 21, which grew out of the Rio Conference of 1992. G. H. Bush represented the U.S.A at the Conference.

With Common Core, the Gates Foundation has spent more than $170 million to develop and promote the Common Core Standards. As its biggest nongovernmental backer, Bill Gates is worried about the “bumpy” implementation in some states and some of the political attacks that have been lobbed at the Common Core. In an attempt to beat back “false claims” lobbed by critics, Bill Gates told several thousand educators gathered for the inaugural conference of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards — a nonprofit organization that runs a voluntary system to certify teachers — to help parents understand the new Common Core academic standards. Gates suggested that critics were uninformed.

“We the People” still have a voice. We cannot allow our children to become puppets of a socialist Leftist agenda without putting up a fight. Our nation’s survival as a free and liberty-loving country depends on what we do today. Talk with your neighbors and friends, especially those with children in public schools; speak out at school board meetings against Common Core; express your concerns to legislators, state and federal; and write Letters to the Editor to local newspapers about the chilling truth behind Common Core State Standards.
Article 1: Thorner: Chilling Truth Behind Common Core State Standards, May 20, 2014